The Punjab government has instructed all department heads to forbid the use of words ‘Harijan’ and ‘Girijan’ in official parlance and not put it anywhere in Scheduled Caste certificates.

The Punjab government has instructed all department heads to forbid the use of words ‘Harijan’ and ‘Girijan’ in official parlance and not put it anywhere in Scheduled Caste certificates.

“It was after the Punjab State Scheduled Castes Commission took up the matter with the state government that the latter followed it up and issued directives against the use of aforesaid words,” commission chairman Rajesh Bagha stated here on Sunday.

He said the commission had received a complaint that a revenue official had issued an order regarding the use of the word ‘Harijan’ in place of ‘Scheduled Caste’, which had prompted it to take up the matter with the state government, following which the directives had been issued in line with the Union government’s notification dated August 16, 1990.